Foreign Office 'unrelentingly pro-Palestinian' says Israel

Israel has reacted angrily to a confidential Foreign Office document accusing it of illegally expanding Jewish settlements and routing the West Bank barrier to prevent east Jerusalem from becoming the Palestinian capital.

Officials described the document, drafted for an EU foreign ministers meeting earlier this week, as "anti-Israeli" and said it was further evidence the Foreign Office is "unrelentingly pro-Palestinian". Britain makes more formal protests to Israel over its actions in the occupied territories than any other country.

The document warns Israeli actions are jeopardising peace and risk radicalising Palestinians. It recommends several measures to resist the Israeli tactic, including politically symbolic actions such as moving meetings with Palestinian officials from Ramallah to east Jerusalem.

An Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, Mark Regev, said: "We would see that as problematic. There are agreements with the Palestinians where that isn't supposed to happen. It would not be the actions of those who support Israel."

An Israeli source said: "We are not in the slightest bit surprised that this should have come from the British. On the one hand they always say they understand Israel's problems and want to be an intermediary and on the other they are accusing us and attempting to embarrass us. They cannot be trusted," he said.

No 10 played down the document, saying it was "drawn up as part of the EU process, reflecting not just British views but the collective views of the head of missions in Jerusalem". Although it was written by British diplomats at the UK's consulate in east Jerusalem, one diplomat said "there are others who agree with it".

Israeli officials contrast what they see as Foreign Office hostility with the views of some British ministers. In September the Middle East minister, Kim Howells, shocked UK diplomats when the former chair of Labour Friends of Israel told the Jerusalem Post that rocket and artillery attacks on the Gaza Strip were a "measured" and "proportionate" response to Palestinian mortar attacks on Israel.

At the time British diplomats were lodging complaints over dozens of attacks on Gaza that destroyed schools and homes and the use of sonic booms to intimidate Palestinian civilians.

The Jerusalem Post observed Mr Howells' support for Israeli actions was only tempered by a note from an FO aide who reminded him to mention UK objections to the spread of Jewish settlements.